Stay
by hey-elle
Summary: They didn't understand each other. But that didn't stop them trying to. One-shot.


_ All along it was a fever. A cold sweat, hot headed believer._

He was burning with it. With passion for his country. With belief in liberty, equality and justice. You would never be able to tell, just looking at him. His beautiful face betrayed little emotion. Like he had been cut from marble. But the coldness of his mannerisms clashed harshly with the intense heat of his actions. Planning, rallying, speaking, fighting. His voice was full of fire. His eyes were full of fire. His movements were full of fire. Just looking at him, you couldn't tell he was on fire. But watching him you knew. He was burning with passion.

_I threw my hands in the air and said show me something. _

She hung around the Musain. He'd see her at the rallies. She was one of the victims of an oppressive society. A reminder of the cause he was fighting for. She laughed at him and his ideas. "You're going to war for this?" He nodded. She laughed again. "How stupid."

"Why?"

"There's people struggling for their lives and you're willing to just throw yours away."

"It's for a greater good. So that those people can stop struggling and live in a world of freedom and justice. I want to help those who are oppressed."

"What do you know of our lives?"

"I know you suffer from the oppression of our government."

She laughed again. "That's just a lot of fancy words. You don't know what we suffer."

"Then show me."

_If you dare come a little closer._

She grinned at his request, rolled her eyes and tossed her dirty hair over her shoulder. She didn't take him seriously. He repeated the words. The grin faltered a moment. She cocked her head to the side, surveying him. His red coat, white shirt, gold hair. All shiny and clean. She laughed. "Show me." He was in earnest, she realized.

"Why do you want to see?"

"So I can understand. I want to know."

"Do you really want to?"

He nodded. "It's not pretty." He was undeterred.

She arched an eyebrow. Fine. He wanted to see? Well then she'd show this bourgeois boy.

_Round and around and around and around we go. _

She took him deep into the slums. Where the sounds of wailing children, the smell of rotting bodies, the dirt, the disease, the death crowded them on all sides. He stuck to her at first, unsure in this world so far from his own. He followed her like a shadow. A strange thing, she thought, since he was all light and she was all dark. Through the streets they went, circling through the slums of St-Michele.

_Oh, now tell me now, tell me now you know._

They resurfaced and he stood a moment, sucking in air untainted by poverty. "Do you see how stupid it is?"

"No."

"You're fighting for justice. We're fighting for our lives. What's the point of fighting just to die? We love our lives too much to throw them away for a cause."

"You're wrong."

They glared at each other.

_Not really sure how to feel about it. Something in the way you move it takes me all the way._

It wasn't that he searched her out. He just kept noticing her. At the rallies, around the Musain. Sometimes in the streets he'd catch a flicker of movement in the shadows. His head would jerk automatically in its direction and he'd see her. He would sit staring out the Musain window, watching half the city go by and not notice any of them. But then dark hair, dirty face and his attention was immediately caught. He didn't understand what it was about her this shadow of a girl that caught his attention.

_Makes me feel like I can't live without you. I want you to stay. _

If Marius was there at the Musain, she was there. Sometimes she'd arrive with him. Other times she would come an hour later. He always knew when she was there. No matter if he was deep in a debate or poring over maps of the city. It was as if something in him was wired to alert him of her presence. He'd talk to her, try and understand why she didn't believe. She'd talk to him, not understanding why he would waste life. They were puzzles to each other. Sometimes it frustrated him so much he almost wished he'd never met her, this puzzling girl. Almost. But he knew deep down, he'd rather spend his whole life trying to understand her than not have met her at all. And always, just when he thought he might understand, she would leave. It wasn't that she had to but when Marius left, she left. And he always wished she wouldn't.

_It's not much of a life you're living. _

"Because there are people suffering. I don't want them to suffer. There are injustices that must be dealt with."

"But those injustices aren't done to you. Why would you care? You have wealth and beauty. Why don't you use them to go live a life for yourself?"

_It's not just something you take, it's given._

"It's not about me. What of my fellow man? Do I just let them continue in misery?"

"They don't owe you anything. That's just their lot. But you - the world is yours for the taking. So why don't you take it?"

"Would you? If you could? Would you leave behind your life on the streets and never think twice about the people who had to stay behind?"

She stayed silent.

"A mindset like that is what led to a tyranny like ours. I'd gladly give my life to end it."

_Round and around and around we go._

They argued, time after time. But neither understood the other. She wanted a life apart from the drudgery and despair. Yet here he was submersing himself in it. War. Who would want it? More death. More destruction. Wasn't there enough of it without him stirring up trouble. She didn't understand.

How could she not see all he wanted was to stop the death and destruction forever? Yes, it would be hard. Yes, there would be losses but in the name of the greater good, those were things he was willing to endure. Wasn't a world free of this darkness worth it?

They argued and argued and argued.

_Oh, now tell me now tell me now you know._

There were moments of understanding. Little islands in the ocean of their arguments where they both agreed. They took refuge there. And they would smile at each other. Enjoying their little bits of peace.

_Not really sure how to feel about it. _

Marius. Marius had been the light of her dark world. A single bolt of sunshine so bright to her eyes used to the night that it almost blinded her. But like a moth incapable of keeping away from the flame she drew near to him, even though it singed her wings.

But him.

He wasn't just a ray of light. He was the sun god himself, who illuminated the shadows where she made her home. He violently stripped away the darkness she hid in. He wasn't the gentle warmth of Marius. He was an enveloping heat and she didn't know what to make of the intensity that radiated from him.

_Something in the way you move makes me feel like I can't live without you it takes me all the way. _

She found herself becoming more and more accustomed to him and his golden ways. His light kept forcing itself into the darkest corners of her mind. She resented and reveled in it. His dream of a new world sounded like a beautiful heaven. That didn't mean she believed in it, though. No, she was too smart for that. The sun always had to set no matter how bright it was. But still, even when she was away from him, back in her darkness, she would think of him, lift her eyes to the sky and smile at the stars, wondering how she'd never noticed their loveliness.

_I want you to stay._

"Don't go to war."

"I must."

"What if you die?."

"Then I will die."

"Then what help will you be to your 'fellow man'?"

"I can't stay and do nothing."

"But I want you to," she thought.

_Oh the reason I hold on. Oh 'cuz I need this hole gone._

"Why don't you want me to do this?"

"Like I said, you'll die."

"And you don't want me to?" There was a new note in his voice. One she couldn't figure out.

"No. Of course not." Of course she didn't. He was the only one who treated her with respect, with equality. Years of being shoved down, deprived of any kindness, the hurt digging into her soul, leaving a gaping hole that only got deeper. But then he'd come and the hole had gotten smaller and smaller until it was almost gone.

_Funny you're the broken one but I'm the only who needed saving. _

"And if you win? What will you do with your new world of justice and freedom?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean what are your plans after all this?"

"We must set up a new government and ensure that everything continues to be carried out with justice."

"Still taking no time to enjoy yourself," she sighed.

"It's not all about enjoyment and pleasure."

"Then why do you even bother fighting? If enjoyment of the good things means nothing, what's the purpose of trying to get those goods?"

He couldn't answer.

"Isn't it so you can be happy?" she supplied an answer.

"Yes. I guess."

"And other people, too?"

He nodded.

"And don't you make people happy because you love them?"

He frowned, a sign she recognized as his confusion. "I don't know what you mean."

"Don't you think love is worth fighting for and living for?"

"I don't know. I know nothing of love except my love for my country."

She laughed bitterly. "And you say I have a miserable life."

His frown deepened.

_Cuz when you never see the light it's hard to know which one of us is caving. _

He really couldn't understand her. She really couldn't understand him. His light was too intense, her darkness was too unfathomable. But both continued to strain their eyes hoping they would see. All they wanted was to understand. All they wanted was to be understood.

Time slipped through their hands like water in a sieve and still they could not understand. And still they tried. He sought her out now. She let herself be found. He descended to the darkness, she rose up to the light. Their thoughts, their words, their desires crashed together. And they could not understand how they'd become so entangled in each other.

_Not really sure how to feel about it. _

"It's time."

"I know."

They looked at each other and looked away.

The drums rumbled, the people shouted, the time was now.

The barricade rose, a symbol of hope, a promise of death.

_Something in the way you move._

Bullets were flying, rain was falling. And then he saw her. Just like he always saw her. Just like he always knew when she was there. She moved through the rain. She moved in front of the bullet. And he suddenly understood. A better world wasn't worth fighting for unless there was someone to give it to. "Eponine!" Her name was ripped from his throat.

She gasped as the bullet ripped through her middle. She thought it would be more painful than this, dying. The world blurred and tumbled and she found herself half lying, half sitting against the base of the barricade. And then suddenly he was there. Moving like a dart of sunshine. She frowned. No not sunshine. It was raining. Like a flash of lightning.

_Makes me feel like I can't live without you and it takes me all the way._

"Why did you do that?" he asked.

"It was the only way to stop it," she said, as though it were obvious.

"You didn't have to stop it."

"It was going to hit you," she reasoned.

"You took a bullet for a cause you don't even believe in."

"This bullet wasn't going to hit your cause. It was going to hit you." He frowned, a sign recognized as his confusion. "Enjolras, I understand now. There are some things that are worth dying for."

_I want you stay._

"Stay with me." She tried not to sound like she was begging.

"I'm not going anywhere." She could feel the rain on her face and his arms around her, assuring her he was still there.

She was counting her life in struggled breaths.

"Stay with me." He tried not to sound like he was begging. "We're going to see that new world together."

She smiled and shuddered as the pain lanced through her.

"Enjolras, I can already see your new world," she whispered. "It's beautiful."

Her words echoed in his mind as he turned from the window. She could see it. He saw the flash of fire as the guns fired. She was in the better world already. "Stay there and wait for me." He thought as death raced towards him.


End file.
